Monica Flores, Graduate Student, Miller Lab, GW Department of Chemistry

The Department of Chemistry Presents:  Monica Flores, Graduate Student, Miller Lab, GW Department of Chemistry

The magnitude of the atmosphere-land carbon exchange rate is arguably the largest source of uncertainty in our understanding of climate change. Under this umbrella, perhaps no ecosystem is as important as the continental boundaries where sea level rise, rising water temperatures, and changing salinity impact both plant and animal communities which in turn feedback to emission rates of carbon-containing species. Our focus, in collaboration with Mesa Photonics, has been in the development and deployment of a Laser Heterodyne Radiometer (LHR) that simultaneously measures CO₂, CH₄, H₂O, and O₂ mixing ratios throughout the troposphere and lower stratosphere. One of the prototype instruments is housed in an observatory installed at the Global Change Environmental Wetland (GCREW) at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) near Edgewater, Maryland. The data record from this instrument is anticipated to not only be complementary to other surface concentration and flux measurements but is also expected to be useful in determining transport and land-air surface exchange rates at larger scales.

BIO

Monica received her B.S. in Chemistry from Florida International University in Miami, FL. In 2017, Monica joined Dr. Houston Miller’s laser analytics research group at George Washington University. Her research project has focused on instrument and method development for atmospheric measurements of greenhouse gases using laser heterodyne radiometry.